Having been involved in Technical Publishing and S1000D for more years that I care to remember I have consistently met projects which need to be produced to a Specification quoted in the various supplied bid documents. As a number of you have probably experienced, the fact that a Specification is quoted is often not the end of the story. Many projects, particularly prior to the advent of SGML and S1000D, paid very loose lip service to the quoted specification.
When is a Standard Not a Standard?
I wish I could have a bar of gold for every time I have heard the phrase "Ah, yes, I know that is what it says in the Bid Document, but we use XYZ version of it which is detailed in document AB". Having then given you the document AB you find that they don't quite follow that either. Oh yes, they claim to have very good reasons for following that. I was hoping that the advent of S1000D was going to put an end to that especially with users realising that S1000D will only work properly if Business Rules are written (sensibly) and applied properly.
I have very recently heard of a project that is supposed to be following S1000D but in fact, yes you have guessed it, they have their own version of S1000D, indeed they have tweaked the DTD. I am so glad that I do not write publications for major projects anymore.
1 comment:
One of my favourite quotes from Dennis Richie is on standards:
"One thing that people should realise is that a lot of standards ... are made by quite small groups ... It means that a few good people can really save the day, but it also means that a few idiots can mess things up for years to come."
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